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Creative Nonfiction

I'm writing MINE: El Despojo de Maria Zacarias Bernal Berreyesa, about a Spanish matriarch of early San Jose whose family helped settle the entire Bay Area. For the last thirty years her personal history and mine have shared the same league of land in the Almaden Valley, and I’ve felt her presence there long before I knew she had even existed. Since I "met" Zacarias it's been a privilege -- and an obsession -- to learn and write about this remarkable, courageous woman.

Many thanks to the descendants, docents, archivists, professors and others who've supported this project. If you would like to contribute to my research, please know that I welcome all ideas, information, anecdotes, thoughts, and especially photographs of Maria Zacarias. All sources will be credited, of course.